Hung Truong: The Blog!

Facebook Programming Puzzles – A Boatload of Fun?

So I was browsing Facebook, my second favorite social network (my most favorite being Notecentric, of course). Unbeknownst to most, Facebook has a bunch of random pages linked to from their footer. There’s a pretty cool developer blog, and other random junk. I was looking at the jobs section (I need something to do this Summer) and I came across a section called “Puzzles.”

There’s just a bunch of programming puzzles. Some are harder than others. As in programming wise and computationally too. The Prime Bits problem seemed pretty easy (as in, doable in about an hour) so I did it. I guess I’ll just send it to Facebook and tell them that I’m looking for a Summer internship or something.

The only thing is, it seems like the puzzle is too easy. What if they use this puzzle as some kind of red herring to capture lazy programmers in order to blacklist them? Or maybe there’s a way to be clever that I didn’t think of? I’ll probably send it anyway. It only took me like an hour. It’s probably mostly just to see what peoples’ programming styles are like (OOP, functional, etc.).

What’s the point of my post? I dunno, but Facebook seems like a pretty fun place to work for if they just randomly post programming puzzles for people to solve.

University of Michigan: More News (Good News!)

I wrote this over on my grad school blog, since it has to do with grad school.

I got an offer to be a University Library Associate. This is a pretty big deal, so read about it here!

Basically, tuition and money to go to school are no longer a concern, and I’ll be sending my acceptance to Michigan very soon.

After being rejected by Google, this is really just what I needed to get out of my semi-depressed slump of saditude. Now I’m super happy!

Google College Days Interview and Visit: Impressions + Verdict

[Edit 11-13-2010 Hi Techcrunch! This is an old post I made more than 3 years ago about Google. tl;dr I interviewed and didn’t get a job. I’ve done some stuff since then. Check me out on LinkedIn and look at my portfolio. I’m currently looking for interesting stuff to do. And now back to this lengthy post about Google…]

So last Thursday I flew out to Google to visit in the context of their College Days program to do some interviews / take a tour of the Googleplex and eat their food. Google had me sign a pretty hefty NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) so I’ll try to be careful with what I say. Basically, I believe that if what I say is pretty much common net knowledge, I’ll be ok. I don’t really think they told me any Google secrets.

The main point of the NDA, I think, is not to reveal any of the interview questions, since they’re important to keep under wraps so that interviewees will see them as fresh questions instead of being coached on them.

Michigan SI Visiting Days: Impressions

After my Google Visit, I left early on Saturday morning to fly to Michigan. Michigan is my top (and sadly, only) school right now as far as graduate school possibilities go. It’s okay though, because I think Michigan would be my top school even if I was admitted to all the schools that I applied to.

In March, Hung Joins The Jet Set

Or at least it seems like it. Earlier in the month, I rode on a bus with the UNM basketball band to Las Vegas. I guess that doesn’t count as “Jetting” but hey, I was traveling. Just last week, I flew with the basketball band to Hartford CT.

Tomorrow, I’m flying to California for a Google job interview, then flying from there to Michigan for the University of Michigan School of Information Visiting Days. Finally, on the 26th I fly back home.

That’s a lot of cities in one month, and a lot of frequent flier miles. Hopefully I can get something cool. Like a magazine subscription!

I’ve just finished printing all of the documents that I think I’ll need to find my way around (this is my first time flying alone). Plus I gotta take taxis and shuttles and all sorts of crap that I never thought about when traveling around with my family.

Hopefully everything will go without a hitch. Maybe I’ll even get to do one of those things where I give up my seat and make mad bank for it, flying out the day after! One can only hope.